Adobe Flash CS4 Professional for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide

Animating Other Property Changes

Chapter 11

308

Figure 11.38 You can use the Rotation Z hot text in the

Motion Editor to add a bit of spin to the tween target.

Animating Other Property

Changes

You can use the Motion Editor to add prop-

erty keyframes for all the properties that you

can animate with motion tweens.  e pro-

cess is similar to adding property keyframes

for Stage position.  e speci c settings and

graphs are di erent. In the following tasks,

you’ll create some basic property keyframes

to animate changes in size, rotation, and color.

To rotate the tween target:

1. Using the MovingStarMaster template

you created in the preceding task, open

a new document, select the tween span,

and access the Basic Motion section of

the Motion Editor.

If necessary, click the triangle to the left of

the category name to view its graphs.

2. Position the Motion Editor’s playhead in

frame 5.

3. Use the Rotation Z hot text to enter the

degree of rotation.

For this task, enter 90 degrees. Positive

values create clockwise rotation; negative

values, counterclockwise.

Flash adds a property keyframe to the

Rotation Z graph and updates the curve

(Figure 11.38).

Manipulating Tween Targets

to Add Property Keyframes

In Chapter 9, you placed symbol instances

in keyframes on either end of a keyframe

span to create a classic tween. You then

changed the properties of the symbols

by manipulating the symbol instances

directly—for example, using the free-

transform tool to change a symbol’s size.

You can also use those techniques in

motion tweening. Whenever you manip-

ulate a tween target on the Stage, Flash

translates your changes into property

keyframes. You saw Flash add position

keyframes to the Timeline when you

created the bouncing ball earlier in this

chapter.  e technique works for any

property that you can tween in a motion

tween. Flash creates property keyframes

in both the Timeline and the Motion

Editor in response to your changes to

the Tween target on the Stage. For exam-

ple, open a new document using the

BounceDownMaster template. Position

the playhead at frame 7. Using the free-

transform tool, change the size of the

tween target (MyBall). Flash adds a scale

keyframe to frame 5 in the Timeline and

adds a property keyframe to frame 7 of

the property curves for Scale X and/or

Scale Y in the Motion Editor.